Thursday, April 08, 2010

Last night was a less than stellar night for our household. Nothing major happened -- just a series of mishaps that left me wishing we'd stayed home on the couch instead of venturing out.

Rob is going to build is some shelves for our basement. I, of course, voted for the easy option of simply buying shelves, but Rob wants to take on the challenge. So, after lots of measuring and drafting and figuring (all by Rob, mind you, since I don't do numbers), we headed off to Lowe's to buy our lumber and try to look like we know what we are doing.

Rob even wore a tape measure on his belt to complete the look.

We get to Lowe's, load up 20 boards on our giant cart and head to the back of the store to get them cut to the right length. No Lowe's employee is to be found. I head to the checkout at the front of the store (down on the contractor's end of the joint; not near customer service) and asked for some help. The guy at the checkout asked me if I looked for someone in the back (yes, sir, I did), then proceeded to page someone.

Maybe it was just me, but he could have announced that the Queen of England was in the plumbing section for all I know. I couldn't understand a word he said.

I wandered back to where Rob stood with our stack of wood and waited. And waited. And waited.

The checkout guy could see down the aisle, and I heard him make another unintelligible helpful announcement for assistance in the wood cutting area. I finally walked up to the Customer Service Desk to patiently request again.

After a big awkward stare when I asked if I could get some help, the guy there finally paged the elusive "Josh", who was apparently at lunch. With no response to his page, I was finally informed that nobody was working in the lumber section, accompanied by a big shoulder shrug.

I then informed him that I was leaving a giant stack of wood in the middle of the aisle and taking my business elsewhere. When Josh finally showed up, he could put it away.

Off to Home Depot we go, where we found an excellent wood-cutting guy and boards of better quality. He sliced the boards, I found a bathroom cabinet, and off we go to the checkout.

After several attempts, we finally wrangled the 8' boards into my CRV (So they were sticking out the back window. It was dark, and we drove slowly!) and headed home. Rob unloaded everything, then decided to fit together how the shelves will be built.

Small problem. The boards were too short. Did you know a 2x3 board is actually 1.5x2.5?

Me, either.

While Rob stands there staring at the stack of incorrectly-sized boards, I decide to back the car in the garage. I never back the car in the garage. I'm rolling backwards, thinking about the wood, and BAM. I backed right into the bikes. The handle of my bike poked through the drywall, and the handle of Rob's bike made a lovely scratch on the tire cover on the car.

Uggggggggggh.

To good news is that Rob thinks the shelves will work. He might slice off an inch of something or another so it'll be perfect. He has a new circular saw to break in, thanks to his mom and dad.

As for the bikes, they'll be okay. Since I don't ride mine anymore (Kathryn + bike = broken ankle), and we are building garage shelves eventually that will cover up the new bike handle-sized hole, it'll all be fine. Could have been worse!

We finally called it a day and headed inside before we did any more damage. All in all, a banner night.

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Rob and Kathryn are a good team. They grew up six miles from each other in Maryland, attended different high schools and colleges (FSU for him; Harding for her), and met 150 miles from home in northern Virginia. Here's where we'll chat about happenings, our crazy kitty and whatever is on our minds.